The newspaper mandate

posted at 9:10 am on April 3, 2012 by Steven Den Beste

Newspapers have been an important part of the American political process since even before the Constitution was written. The First Amendment was inspired, in part, by the founders’ recognition of the importance of newspapers to that process.

Newspapers have been referred to as the “Fourth Estate” (after Congress, the Presidency, and the Judiciary) because they monitored the government at all levels, federal and state and local, and kept voters up to date on what the government was doing. Without that information, voters would not be able to exercise their franchise properly.

But now newspapers face an existential crisis due to falling revenue. Most can no longer afford to maintain a large staff of reporters, and are reduced to filling their pages with stories from the major wire services. The future is dire; even with those cutbacks they’re losing money and it’s only going to get worse. How long before the first major city whose last daily paper goes belly up? If it hasn’t happened already, it surely will soon.

Who shall keep the voters apprised of government activity, if not an organized press? And who will pay for it? A government subsidy is no answer; if you give government the purse strings, what newspaper would feel comfortable criticizing the government that pays them?

So how about a newspaper mandate? You pass a federal law requiring every adult American to subscribe to a daily newspaper. They can pick any newspaper they like, so there’s no problem with monopolies. (Yeah, in many areas now there’s only one local paper, but you can get USA Today or the Wall Street Journal nearly everywhere, just to take two examples. And once the newspaper mandate is in place, you will find new newspapers popping up, and existing ones broadening their distribution areas. Any monopolies will be short-lived.)

This then gives the press a guaranteed source of funding which isn’t directly under government control, providing them with the resources to do the kind of aggressive reporting on government activities which is an essential part of running our Democracy.

Now I don’t really think this is a good idea, and I’m not proposing it seriously. I also recognize that it contains several whoppers which probably inspired horselaughs while you were reading it.

Blowback

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Well, the solution is actually easy. Should this ever come to pass – I’ll subscribe to the UK Sun.
1. They are there for all the really important happenings.
2. Since they are outside of the US, they will have less US News that I don’t care about.
3. My mandatory subscription money won’t be helping the Dems.
Yes, I know Murdoch owns it – I don’t care.

And we’re just going to have the IRS monitor your banking, income and employment status to make sure you meet the conditions set forth in the mandate, and then give the IRS enforcement powers to force you to comply with said mandate, as a condition of citizenship.

So, after all those years trying to “save a tree” and stopping my subscriptions to several newspapers along the way…

Can’t catch a break.

Print media, newspapers and magazines, is fading from the public scene. Costs are a key problem. Along with a reluctance to put hard-earned dollars to prop up what has clearly become an information/propaganda arm of the DNC.

Timeliness is a major problem as well. Having to wait till the next morning’s edition to find out what happened today…or having to wait a week or month to find out what happened today, was once acceptable…cheaper than the telegraph…and getting one’s “news” weeks after the event was considered quite timely…back in the day.

But, with the 24-hours news cycle and blogs and other news portals on the net…why would one buy a newspaper, unless it was one strictly addressed to local news or some arcane subject?

Steven, the overall premise, that if the Mandate is upheld…then this “critical” component of our national economy…the print media..would necessitate being saved by government, and we, the people, would/could be required to subscribe to an approved newspaper or journal in order to save the collapse of such a vital component of our economy…is becoming more plausible.

This is a great idea in the name of fairness. Because, we all know that Republicans have no plan in place for preexisting conditions for those who may lack a newspaper. If newspapers are vital to liberty, then a newspaper mandate is essential to upholding liberty. Why do conservatives hate liberty?

Let’s say the health insurance mandate survives. You are compelled to buy health insurance. Yet these insurance companies would go broke if people were so unhealthy that they extracted more in health care than they put in in premiums. So the State has an interest in making sure you maintain some semblance of good health. To that end, ensuring you eat healthy is part of the regimen. So you need to buy broccoli, a healthy food source. And with Wickard & Raisch, government can forbid you from growing a plant, which means you have to buy. But wait, there’s more. Buying broccoli doesn’t mean eating it. And it’s too expensive to have government monitors watching you eat your vegetables at home, so let’s only allow communal dining, where we can have monitors watch to make sure you eat all of your government issued food. Far-fetched? They do it now in grade school cafeterias, where they’ll snatch your homemade food.

Newspapers have been referred to as the “Fourth Estate” (after Congress, the Presidency, and the Judiciary)

Yes, but this “fourth estate” nomenclature didn’t start with the Federalist Papers or Thomas Jefferson, or anything like that. The phrase comes from a speech that Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart gave at Yale in 1974. That’s all.

Who shall keep the voters apprised of government activity, if not an organized press?…..A government subsidy is no answer; if you give government the purse strings, what newspaper would feel comfortable criticizing the government that pays them?

WHO is doing it now? The press IS organized, in much the same way as the crime families of the 20th century (that is, IF they existed at all)

What difference would it make to them is they took gubmint money? They are uncomfortable even suggesting that Democrats might be doing anything contrary to the good of the nation.

However, all that goes out the window if a Republican wins the White House.

There’s a big difference between having access to something and the quality of the something you have access to.

For example, having health insurance doesn’t ensure that you’ll get what you’re expecting (quality care with resulting good health). And if the MSM doesn’t cover stories with proper rigorous standards, what’s the point in having newspapers anyway?

The “Fourth Estate” has been the Democratic Party’s version of Pravda for so long I haven’t gotten a paper in about 10 years. I thought Palin was perfectly justified in not answering the, “What papers do you read?” question. There really aren’t any worth reading. (Maybe the Wall Street Journal) I get all my information on-line-yes, some of it may be inaccurate, but it’s free, fast and if you check enough different sources you can probably get a good picture of what is actually going on.

Newspapers and magazines are going by the wayside because what they print only appeals to the Left. Let them fail. If they were selling advertising and papers it wouldn’t be a problem. None of them seem to understand business and what makes a good paper that will sell and be respected. Right now they are propoganda tools and pretty useless to people who actually want information.

Why would the government fund the business except for a propganda arm when they already have it for free? Silly premise. Next.

I always thought newspapers were called the fourth estate after the three estates of the old French regime, in a self deprecating manner: the clergy, the nobles, the rest of humanity and then such lower orders as mere newspaper people.

Newspapers and magazines are going by the wayside because what they print only appeals to the Left. Let them fail. If they were selling advertising and papers it wouldn’t be a problem. None of them seem to understand business and what makes a good paper that will sell and be respected. Right now they are propoganda tools and pretty useless to people who actually want information.

Why would the government fund the business except for a propganda arm when they already have it for free? Silly premise. Next.

BetseyRoss on April 3, 2012 at 10:06 AM

^^^This. The good ones such as the Washington Times, who make every attempt to present both sides, will thrive. Virtually all the other left-leaning papers will eventually go the way of Air America.

Gee, I wonder why just about the only newspapers in the country that are very profitable are the Wall St. Journal and the Washington Times. Could it be the same reason that Rush, Levin, Hannity, et al are wildly successful while Air America is in the bankruptcy dustbin; or why Fox News is so successful while only crickets seem to be watching MSNBC?

…what newspaper would feel comfortable criticizing the government that pays them?

Why the hypothetical? They are already paid not to criticize the Democratic Party – we just don’t know the details of how it is done yet. Unless you believe that a business can survive for years delivering worthless propaganda without an extra source of revenue under the table.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was just sold again for the sixth time in five years. The paper was bought by a consortium of Democrat political operatives in South Jersey/Philadelphia for 55 million which is 10x’s less than the original transaction price five years ago.

I always like pointing out how unions and Democrats always manage to kill businesses. Now they can use the Inquirer with which to wipe their sphincters and tell the ignoratti how great Obama and Michael Nutter are.

I think it is the only way to save the papers and I believe that history will bear me out.

The printing press put town criers out of business because with a printing press people could print out and distribute whatever they found to be interesting and newsworthy whereas the town crier only announced whatever the King, Emperor, or local Burgermeister told him to say. If only the town criers had a way to force everyone to not only listen to them but pay them for their service to the community, we would still have town criers to this day.

Of course, back in the day, the town criers didn’t know about personal mandates, so the newspapers have an edge. That’s progress for you.

Wrong! Just think of the benefits of newspapers. The Secretary of Health can mandate what must be in the newspaper (at least 2 positive front page articles on the regime per day), provide health “advice” and even health services. Before you see a doctor you must submit your symptoms to the newspaper’s health adviser who will determine based on age, possible contagiousness, and symptoms whether you warrant the opportunity to even go to the doctor’s office. If the answer is “no”, they can prescribe some home remedies that can save on the pharmaceutical bills and just may work.

The daily newspaper can also provide the daily allowed diet along with cooking instructions. If you are allowed to go to the doctor, based on the criteria above, the newspaper can provide diagrams on the agencies you must first pass through to get there.

In closing, I’m all for the newspaper mandate. The final use each day will be to use it to clean up all the political bullpucky provided by your US Government.

Newspaper readership isn’t falling just because of the internet. People know when they’re being fed garbage under the guise of “reporting”. Several papers are having no problems. But then, they “report” the news.

The country needs to start arresting MSM owners – including newspaper owners – reporters, editors, etc and put them on trial for treason, etc. E.g. how did Dan Rather get away with trying to influence a Presidential Election!? Another recent example is this Trayvon Martin case…geez!

Steven: Someone famous once said something like; “If I had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I would choose the latter”. What those involved with printing the papers have moved away from is the part about “news”.

Let’s extend that “newspaper mandate” a step further, and require every US citizen to purchase one book every fiscal quarter. Just think how much public discourse will be enriched if every one is required to purchase a copy of “Dreams of My Father” every three months. There’s any number of books people can be required to purchase and read to produce the properly indoctrinated “voter”. Just think Mao’s Little Red Book. And the royalties from those sales will serve to ensure that none of America’s “Great Thinkers” will ever have to perform any task more onerous than tapping a few keys on a keyboard, thus leaving them ample time to turn out even more “scholarly” works. Win-win!!!

I am going to participate in newspaper commerce without a mandate by sitting in my recliner and deciding to not buy a newspaper at a monthly home delivery cost of $30. So over the next year, I will contribute $360 dollars to the GDP in commerce, and I won’t have to write a check or even leave my recliner. That’s the beauty of ObamaNomics. Doing nothing can contribute great things to society and to economic growth.